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Adjudicative Speech And The First Amendment, Christopher J. Peters

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While political speech - speech intended to influence political decisions - is afforded the highest protection under the First Amendment, adjudicative speech - speech intended to influence court decisions - is regularly and systematically constrained by rules of evidence, canons of professional ethics, judicial gag orders, and similar devices. Yet court decisions can be as important, both to the litigants and to society at large, as political decisions. How then can our practice of severely constraining adjudicative speech be justified as consistent with First Amendment principles?

This Article attempts to answer that question in a way that is informative about …